y sepulchre, can at once launch into
the sky, secure of finding Him who once arose from one. In less than an
hour we were descending on the Bay of Laig, a semi-circular indentation
of the coast, about a mile in length, and, where it opens to the main
sea, nearly two miles in breadth; with the noble island of Rum rising
high in front, like some vast breakwater; and a meniscus of
comparatively level land, walled in behind by a semi-circular rampart of
continuous precipice, sweeping round its shores. There are few finer
scenes in the Hebrides than that furnished by this island bay and its
picturesque accompaniments,--none that break more unexpectedly on the
traveller who descends upon it from the east; and rarely has it been
seen, to greater advantage than on the delicate day, so soft, and yet so
sunshiny and clear, on which I paid it my first visit.

The island of Rum, with its abrupt sea-wall of rock, and its
steep-pointed hills, that attain, immediately over the sea, an elevation
of more than two thousand feet, loomed bold and high in the offing, some
five miles away, but apparently much nearer. The four tall summits of
the island rose clear against the sky like a group of pyramids; its
lower slopes and precipices, variegated and relieved by graceful
alternations of light and shadow, and resting on their blue basement of
sea, stood out with equal distinctness; but the entire middle space from
end to end was hidden in a long horizontal stratum of gray cloud, edged
atop with a lacing of silver. Such was the aspect of the noble
breakwater in front. Fully two-thirds of the semi-circular rampart of
rock which shuts in the crescent-shaped plain directly opposite lay in
deep shadow; but the sun shone softly on the plain itself, brightening
up many a dingy cottage, and many a green patch of corn; and the bay
below stretched out, sparkling in the light. There is no part of the
island so thickly inhabited as this flat meniscus. It is composed almost
entirely of Oolitic rocks, and bears atop, especially where an ancient
oyster-bed of great depth forms the subsoil, a kindly and fertile mould.
The cottages lie in groups; and, save where a few bogs, which it would
be no very difficult matter to drain, interpose their rough shag of dark
green, and break the continuity, the plain around them waves with corn.
Lying fair, green and populous within the sweep of its inaccessible
rampart of rock, at least twice as lofty as the ramparts of Ba